Billiards

by William Broadfoot

Using the Rest.

Strength 4. From three lengths to four lengths of the table, beyond which it is probably unnecessary to go. These definitions may be further subdivided as desired: thus a very gentle stroke would be called a very slow or soft No. 1; a less slow one, medium No. 1; a stroke which required the strength to take a ball the length of the table, a full or free No. 1, which it is obvious reaches No. 2 strength; where No. 1 ends No. 2 begins, and so on.

It is clear that the practice prescribed will familiarise the beginner with the various strengths, a matter which he will find greatly to his advantage.

When the ball cannot be comfortably reached by hand an artificial bridge, known as the rest, is employed. A short man requires it frequently, a tall man less often, but both should practise with it assiduously. A competent person will show a beginner the proper way of using it in a very short time. The handle of the rest should be nearly in the same line as the cue, only so far out of it as to permit of free delivery; the cue should be lightly held between forefinger and thumb, knuckles up, the elbow being raised level with the butt. The hand which holds the rest should lie on the table.

These are general rules, but they must on occasion be modified. The practice already defined will serve for strokes with the rest if the ball be placed sufficiently far from the cushion. The half-butt and long-butt should also be used. Before leaving this subject it is well to say that to be obliged to use the rest, and, worse still, the half-butt and long-butt, is at any time a drawback. This can be reduced to a minimum by learning to play with either hand; a most useful accomplishment, by no means very difficult of attainment.

The following memorandum by Mr. Dudley D. Pontifex, who besides being a billiard-player of very high class is an expert at many other games, on the great importance of cultivating an almost mechanical accuracy in delivering the cue, and on the methods which he has followed in order to attain this end, will be read by proficients as well as beginners with both interest and profit. In essentials it agrees with the recommendations already given, and where it may seem to differ the variations are so small as not to require examination and explanation. Some interesting remarks on the styles of leading professional players will be found, and attention is justly directed to Roberts’s admirable delivery of the cue, which is said to appear to be harder or stronger than it really is; but one of the excellences of that great master’s strokes is that they are habitually struck harder than is usual with other professionals; the necessary compensations are, however, applied, and though the ball starts with considerably greater initial velocity than is usual, yet it does not necessarily travel farther or effect more. A heavy drag stroke played the length of the table by Roberts will travel nearly twice as fast as one struck by any other man, yet the object ball will often be found not to be harder hit.

The feat of screwing back to baulk from the red ball on the billiard spot, direct and without trick, is so remarkable that readers cannot fail to be much interested in a well-authenticated instance of the stroke. Besides Mr. Pontifex, William Seymour, (marker in 1895 at the Queen’s Club) was present at the time, and has seen the gentleman do the stroke on many other occasions.

MEMORANDUM

By Dudley D. Pontifex

There is one characteristic which distinguishes games such as billiards and golf, and sharply divides them from others like cricket and tennis. While in the latter the stroke has to be made on a moving ball, in the former the ball is stationary. Instructions as to the method of making a stroke consequently vary in value in the two classes of games. The tiro at cricket or tennis is told to play a particular ball in a particular way, but is met with difficulties when he attempts to carry out the advice. The cricketer knows that he ought to play back or forward according to the length of the ball, but alas! too frequently is unable to decide until too late what the length of some particular ball is. At tennis it is much the same. The player knows well enough how the stroke should be made, but at the critical moment finds himself in such a position that it is utterly impossible to make a correct stroke. In these games the value of instructions is proportionable to the capacity of the player to adapt himself to the exigencies of the moment. It is quite different as regards billiards. Having once made up his mind as to the method to be adopted, there is absolutely nothing to prevent the player from carrying it into practical effect. He is not hurried for time. He is not called upon to make a sudden and, as it were, intuitive decision instantaneously. On the contrary, the table and balls are before him, and his opponent has to wait quietly until the turn is completed. Consequently the value of instructions, if there be any value in instructions, is relatively greatly enhanced in this class of game.